


Closed Systems

by Harukami



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6174871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys wasn't perfectly honest when telling his version of the story, and what he wasn't perfectly honest about was a little something named Handsome Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed Systems

After they'd finished gathering loot and got Sasha's arm fixed up, they went for pizza.

It was absolutely not the best pizza that Rhys had ever seen. Might actually have been one of the worst, barring skin pizza, which was, yeah, a no-contest winner there. It was deep dish, which wasn't his thing to begin with, but he also strongly suspected the cheese was not cheese. What it actually _was_ instead, he wasn't sure.

"Wow," Sasha said. "It's just dripping with flavor, isn't it?"

"I don't think that's flavor," Athena said, gesturing to the puddle of grease gathering under the box.

"That's exactly what flavor is," Sasha said back, smiling sweetly.

He was more inclined to agree with Athena than pretty much anyone else at the table, but he was hungry and they were celebrating. He tried to forget the _actual_ best pizza he'd ever eaten and shoved a bite in his mouth, chewing. It took him a few moments before he could swallow. There was a strange aftertaste under the tomato and he choked, belatedly.

"Fiona, hey, uh," he said, and interrupted himself to rub his tongue against the roof of his mouth as if he could scrub his tastebuds off. "What is, what's that ... that..." He tried to find the right word to describe it. "Motor oil...taste?"

"That's oregano," Fiona said.

"No, I've had oregano, it's definitely not oregano."

"Pretty sure it's oregano," Sasha said, nodding to her sister.

"Yeah," Janey said. "Sure is oregano. I'd know motor oil anywhere, so it ain't that."

"Oregano," Rhys repeated dubiously. He took another bite. It didn't improve on a repeat experience.

For a moment, he let himself remember being on top of the world, but the victory he'd had down here was far more precious than that. Everyone was laughing, bantering, glad to be alive. Even the robots, who didn't eat, were gathered around the table with everyone else. They were gossiping together about the percentage of non-food ingredients that snuck into most foods, and he listened to that as he chewed more and more slowly, tuning the others out. 

"—Handsome Jack?" Sasha had been saying something for a while now but he only snapped his attention back to her at the end of the question, too late to hear the rest of it.

Rhys went cold, especially in the fingers of his flesh hand, which had turned as numb and icy as the other one. "Uh, what? Sorry, what?"

Fortunately, Fiona was answering for him. "Rhys trapped him in his cyberware, then pulled them all out. No more Handsome Jack."

"Oh yeah," Rhys said. "Yeah. No more Jack."

"Huh," Sasha said. Flavor was dripping down her fork onto her hand; she licked it off a moment later and he shuddered. "I'm surprised. After the two of them got all chummy and all."

"He wanted to wear me like a flesh suit!" Rhys protested defensively.

Sasha shuddered dramatically. " _You_? I can't imagine why."

"Yeah— _hey_."

"Good riddance," Fiona said, and downed her drink.

Rhys nodded. He was slowly starting to get feeling back into his fingertips again. "Yeah. He's gone now. For good, for sure. Definitely. Good riddance."

"Guess that explains the new implants," Sasha said. "I like the gold eye. Nice and flashy." She winked at him. 

He was feeling warm again now, too warm, and Fiona was glaring at him, and Gortys took that moment to pay attention and let out a loud "OoooOOoooh," and really, pizza aside, he had everything in the world he could want now.

***

Everything.

Rhys had learned, quite recently, that history was created in the telling of it. There were exceptions, of course; if something was implausible, unbelievable, then the story would break, get interrupted, and the truth would come out instead. But his and Fiona's _little_ embellishments were allowed to go past unchecked. He knew his had, at least—tripping over a psycho became about punching him out rather than letting out a breath of relief when he didn't wake, and ten accountants became fifty. He imagined that Fiona had done similar things. 

But it was fine to lie about things like that, the things that made you look a bit better but didn't seem unlikely or out of character. It was still the same story in the end. 

That was what was important. 

The story they'd ended up creating was about doing the right things, helping the right people, choosing to try again and to keep on trying until they saved everything that they could save—everything that was _worth_ saving, and not letting anyone suffer if it could be avoided.

He hadn't told any lies that would change those basic facts, so nobody needed to know.

***

Rhys turned the lights on in the Atlas lab and let out a slow breath. Over the last few months, it had become his home, and while he was happy to leave it—had, in fact, told Fiona to give him a call if she was going to hunt Vaults or whatever again—he was used to the quiet and the near-solitude now. Was used to examining the various projects, fantasizing about what to start up again, imagining what he could do with his business in the future.

He'd do it right. He'd make Atlas into something it had never been. Something Hyperion never was, either.

And then, everything confirmed in working order and exactly as he'd left it, he turned towards one computer. It wasn't connected to the network, wasn't attached to anything except a power source.

His fingers were tingling. This time it was the missing ones, and he knew that was just his imagination. Still, just to be safe, he used his real fingers to turn the computer on.

The screen flickered to life with a flicker of blue.

"Wow, Pumpkin, finally decided to check in? You must be missing me. How long has it been?" And then, without waiting for a reply, "Seriously, how long? I don't trust you to not have changed the system clock again."

"Nice to see you too, Jack."

Jack smiled at him from the computer screen. It was amazing how many teeth he had, Rhys thought. "So I'm going to guess you were out, right, Rhys, baby? 'Cause you can't ever resist the urge to turn me on when you're at home, so, what, big date?"

"Something like that," Rhys said. He would rather bite his own tongue off than tell Jack how well everything had turned out and let Jack find some way to ruin it for him. "I've got things to do that don't involve you, you know."

Jack cast his eyes upward. "Really. Well, you know, instead of sentencing me to _non-existence_ whenever you're around, it'd be nice if you gave me something to do. I could help one hell of a lot with your projects, you know, keep things moving forward while you're out—" 

"Uh, yeah, no," Rhys said. He slung himself down in front of the computer. "You're not getting hooked up to any systems ever again, Jack. You're here or nowhere."

"So you're turning down my help just to spite me," Jack said, as though he didn't try to spite others at every available opportunity. "Well, fine. Sure thing, bucko. You won't live forever, and then what? You think whoever comes along next will just destroy all your shit without hooking it up? I ain't human any more, Pumpkin, I got all the time in the world. Worked for Gortys, didn't it?"

Jack had put his hand to the other side of the screen, balled up in a fist. Rhys, almost fascinated by the space between them, put his fingertip to it but felt only the cool surface of the monitor. 

"I'm going to hook things up so that when I die," Rhys said, "you die with me. That's what you wanted, wasn't it, Jack? That's what you told me back there. It was a sacrifice you were willing to make."

"Wow. You are seriously more vengeful than I realized. Now, I like that," Jack said. "I appreciate that in you, Rhysie. But I'm not sure you've thought this plan through. You hook up your biometrics to me, you've made a connection between us again. Gonna have to do that _before_ you die. Then what happens to you?"

"I totally have thought it through!" Rhys protested. He hadn't. But, he tried to justify, he had a vague idea of what he _could_ do. "I can't hook my biometrics up directly. But I can set up a system next to you, and hook mine up to that, and program it to _make_ a connection and delete you when it detects I've died."

"You... totally just thought of that."

"No, I—okay, you got me, I did. I only just did. But it'd work." 

Jack nodded knowingly. "Might work, sure, buddy, it might," he said. "You wouldn't be able to test the connection at all. Sometimes things break down. Or, hey, you're going out for long periods now, and Pandora ain't exactly the friendliest planet in the galaxy. You could die before you get that other system set up, and then it's just the waiting game for me, and I win."

Rhys pushed himself away from the computer again and started to make himself coffee. "I believe that I'll live," he said, and hoped that Jack wouldn't ask why. What they'd just all lived through was too fresh in his mind, how there was still the chance to bring people back sometimes, how the odds were just odds and could be beaten. If Jack asked, he wasn't sure he could stop himself from talking about it.

Jack didn't ask. "We all do, Pumpkin. Just look at me."

Despite himself, he did. 

Grinning at him, Jack said, "So the way I see it is, if you've made your choice not to kill me, you get to deal with the risk I'll live."

"I'll... take my chances," Rhys said. The coffee was on, and just needed to brew. As if magnetized, he began to wander back toward the computer.

"Great. Fantastic. I love when people take chances with me," Jack said. "But, you know, I don't get it. You could've kept me trapped forever, or you could have destroyed me completely. Instead you put me in this box. A lovely box, mind you, but a place I might get out of again someday. Why? Are you just _that_ in love with me?"

Rhys felt himself going red. "No! I mean, that's not the point. I just..."

"My last words get to you? Or do you just like the idea of having me, Handsome Jack, stuck in jail? Under your control?" 

"I..."

Jack whistled at whatever he saw on Rhys's face, and Rhys wished he had any idea what exactly that was. "So that's it. You like that I'm your little Jack-in-the-box. Is that what gets you hard, Pumpkin?"

Rhys made a strangled noise, sinking down in his chair. "That's... I..."

"Wow. _Wow_. Thiiiiis is one of those cases where a non-answer is an answer, Rhys. Just... just thought you should know that."

Burying his face in his hands, Rhys let out a whine.

"Maybe you got things a bit mixed up there. I wanted to choke you, not have you choke one out. Get it? Understand? Shit, man, be honest with me, when you transferred me from the eye onto this computer, did you pull your dick out and start yanking?"

"It wasn't _because_ I was putting you on the computer!" Rhys protested. He heard what had come out of his mouth after he'd already said it, and kept stumbling on, like if he shoved enough words between his mouth and Handsome Jack he'd manage to muffle Jack's response."It...It was just... the transfer was taking a long time, you know, and I was alone for the first time in forever and... and it had been a while since I'd..."

Jack's expression was more gleeful than disgusted, though it was going through some impressive contortions. "You fuckin' did."

"Yeah, Jack," Rhys said finally, put out. "Sure. I jerked off. People do that. I _live_ here! This is my _room_. It didn't have anything to do with you!"

"That how you sleep at night?" Jack asked, grinning. "You just tell yourself something until you think that's real? Think back, then look me in the eye and say that."

He remembered how it felt, wondering if what he was doing was right, the anxiety, the anticipation, wondering if Jack would even still be 'alive' by the time the transfer had finished or if pulling out his active implants had killed him. Not knowing what Jack would have to say to him. The tension had been agonizing. It was only natural to want to release that. He avoided Jack's eye. "It... it had nothing to do with you."

"Go on, then."

Whatever Rhys had thought Jack was going to say next, that hadn't been it. "Wh-what?"

"Go on," Jack said, and waved a hand magnanimously. "It's your fucking room, right? What you feel's got nothing to do with me? You're not getting off at having me at your mercy, stuck here where you can kill me with the press of a goddamn button? Show me, give it a good tug and lemme see if you're feeling it."

"I... I am not showing you that," Rhys said, horrified.

"What, like I haven't seen a dick before? Because I have," Jack added. "Loads of 'em. Loads from 'em too."

Suddenly, his reaction felt stupid, and that feeling made him more frustrated. Jack was just a program, and not one with any power to change things any more. "You know what? Fine." Holding aggressive eye contact, Rhys unzipped and pulled out his limp cock.

Without any hesitation, Jack said, "Most of the ones I've seen were more impressive than that one, though. Yikes. Put that back away before you embarrass yourself."

"I don't have anything to be embarrassed about," Rhys said. He shook his dick at Jack. "It's a fine dick, and, see, not hard. Nothing to do with you."

"It's pretty limp, I'll grant you that," Jack said, nodding. "But I think that's just 'cause you're getting embarrassed rather than pissed off. I bet if you actually got angry at me, you'd get your prick stiff, all right. The moment you got mad enough to think about turning me off. You could do that, you know? Stop me from saying this shit to you and just turn me off. Leave me off until you felt like looking at me again. You like that, don't you? Controlling me."

Rhys's traitorous cock twitched in his hand.

"Ohhhh, yeah, you do," Jack crowed, delighted. "You fucking love it. I like that about you, Rhys. Seriously, it wasn't like I had a choice but to use you, but that's what made it _fun_. You really could be my kind of guy. Kinda stupid the way you fight against it, but there it is."

"I really don't want to be 'your kind of guy'," Rhys said, and pretended his cock wasn't half-hard.

Jack seemed to lean forward, closer to the screen. "Let me let you in on a li'l secret, Rhys, baby," he said. "You think just having the power to shut me off is good? Picture this. I'm talking shit to you, someday, like I'm doing now. You're jerking it while I tear your self-esteem apart, right, and at the end, you're feeling shitty and angry and as you come, you reach over and delete me."

Rhys sucked a breath in.

"Annnnd you're hard," Jack said. " _Nothing to do with me_. Bullshit, baby."

"I wouldn't do that," Rhys said.

"Oh, but you like the idea," Jack said, smirking. "So... prove it."

Rhys stared at him. "I'm not going to jerk off for your pleasure, Jack."

"What pleasure?" Jack shot back. "You think I'd get off on you jerking it to me? Honey, if it tickled my nuts every time someone yanked it because of me, I'd never have got anything done. What kinda pleasure you think I can have here? I'm a computer program, Pumpkin, I don't got a dick."

"I'm just going to—" Rhys leaned forward to shut the computer down, get himself some peace.

"Aha. Thought so," Jack said. "You don't trust yourself to not do it."

Rhys froze. "No? I mean? Turning you off is exactly the opposite from letting you watch and then deleting you?"

"Nah. You're just getting away from it. You're not testing anything."

Sinking back in his chair, Rhys stared at Jack with the resentful awareness of being caught in a Catch-22. If he turned the computer off now, he'd never hear the end of it. If he didn't—well, he didn't expect his erection to go anywhere, not while Jack was talking to him like that.

The only way out was to give in and prove him wrong. Which was probably the most embarrassing thing he could think of to do, but he was getting used to being embarrassed. And anyway, surely Jack had seen worse.

He drew a deep breath in and began to move his hand.

Jack let out a laugh. "Jacking off after all, then. Yeah, okay, go for it. Man, that reminds me."

"I don't... want to hear it," Rhys muttered. He tried to hold angry eye contact with Jack, failed, and stared at the bottom of the screen instead, at the clip at the bottom of Jack's chin. He stroked himself quickly, aiming for orgasm as soon as possible, not enjoyment.

"Yeah, I bet you don't. Let me tell you, though, and okay, this is going to sound kind of supervillainy of me, but you're into that, right? If you're going to get off with another person—and I'm not saying that's what you're doing here, Pumpkin, not saying that at all, but with another person around, you know, work with me—anyway, if you're going to get off with another person, there is nothing better than erotic asphyxiation." 

Rhys groaned, hand working hard, and tried to focus on how that felt and not what Jack was saying. "I'm not going to _strangle_ myself. Nice try, Jack."

"Who said anything about yourself? I wasn't strangling myself while I got off. What do I look like, a masochist? Strangling someone else, though, that's the thing."

"That's fucking sick," Rhys said, horrified but somehow still hard, rocking into his hand.

Jack chortled. "I know, right? But it does the trick. Knowing that you've got your cock in one hand and someone's life in the other, there's nothing like it. It'll fuck you up every time. Sex is all about nonverbal sounds and thrashing, that's all I'm saying. You know that? Put your hand on your throat."

Rhys lifted his mechanical hand and did. He didn't tighten it, just rested it there, feeling the cool metal against his skin as he swallowed. Pressure was building in him; he'd come soon, get it over with.

Jack was close enough to the screen that only his sneering smile was visible. "Now squeeze."

And Rhys did, but with the other hand, coming, spattering across the screen, shuddering as he rocked up into his touch, mechanical hand still loose on his throat. "F-fuck you, Jack."

"Wow. Not what I meant," Jack said. "Wipe that shit off, I don't wanna see that. Wrong hand, buddy."

"Right hand," Rhys said.

"Left hand," Jack said, annoyed. "So the wrong one."

Rhys let out a breath and scrubbed at the screen with his sleeve. It smeared more than clearing up, while Jack let out aggravated sighs. "Whatever, Jack. Look. No change. I didn't avoid it, I didn't delete you, I didn't strangle myself. Nothing to do with you."

"Couldn't resist thinking of me hatefully while you came, though, huh. Well, I mean, that's for granted, though," Jack said. He'd moved away from the screen again. "Fine, okay, I'll give it to you. You sure showed me."

"Yeah," Rhys said uncertainly. "I sure did?"

"So you'll keep me. Your little personal entertainment system Jack, turning me on whenever you want and off whenever you don't feel like dealing with me." Jack shifted to peer around the come smears. "How long do you think you can keep it up? Those girls'll find out and rip you a new one before they rip me out."

"They won't find out."

"Iiiii think you proved you can't lie to them forever," Jack said. "You know, before. Back when you kept telling everyone about me."

Rhys said, "That was different. That was... important. Relevant."

"And this isn't?"

"No," Rhys said. "You're not important, Jack. You're just... an afterthought. I took pity on you. I didn't want to destroy anything else, and I didn't want to condemn you to nothingness. But it's entirely self-satisfaction, you know? I killed all those other people."

"...If you go ahead and start getting honest with yourself about this shit there's not going to be much left for me to say..."

There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Flavor, he thought. "Yeah. It's the truth, though. You're here because I wanted to do one thing that wasn't destruction or pain. But it's all about me, Jack, not you. That's why I'll set it up so when I die, you'll get erased. You're only living because I wanted to be a person who was merciful."

"Like I said," Jack said, "It's only a matter of time." 

"Nah," Rhys said. "This isn't your story anymore. This is the story where I get everything I want and am everything I want to be. ...uh, and I'm shutting this down so I can clean it properly." He reached for the power button.

Jack leaned in close again. "Hang on. I'm not done with—" 

"Night, Jack." Rhys turned him off.

He did clean it, and sat in his chair a few minutes after, spent and tired and a little triumphant and a little depressed. It did feel pretty good to get the last word in. 

And then his coffee dinged, ready, and he went to get it so he could wash the taste out of his mouth.


End file.
